Tag Archives: water crisis

I decided to continue searching and tracking reports of unclean water for 2017 like I did for 2016. The list is by no means exhaustive. I’m sure I missed multiple stories. (Feel free to contact me if there are any that should be added.)

The United States has an infrastructure problem. It is going to get worse and stories like this will continue to come out. The swift gutting of environmental regulations coupled with the expansion of destructive and extractive industries will only expedite the process.

Deeper investigations into systemic infrastructure failures should be conducted and answers as to why they continue to happen in the richest country in the world should be given.

The tragedy of Flint, Michigan seems unmatched in these stories, but it’s difficult to know their extent. How much neglect is involved? Did elected officials turn a blind eye? How much harm is done to the public’s health? What will be done to correct these problems and prevent them?

This list was somewhat of an experiment for myself, I decided to search for and track reports of unclean water throughout the United States for the year 2016. I suspect there are many locations that I missed, but this is the best I could do.

I wanted to do this after the reports from Flint began to gain national attention. These reports are not centered around lead contamination, but overall, I think, point to a massive failure in our infrastructure. Some of these reports say that the brown water may be safe to drink, but brown water shouldn’t be our new standard of normal. We’ve got an infrastructure problem, and I think this list shows just how ubiquitous it is. Concerned people in Flint were lied to: they were initially told their water was safe to drink. Maybe they’re not the only ones.